"The King and the Sea"

This month that saltiest monarch, beloved King George, who swears unprintable quarter-deck oaths exclusively, has been working up through the Royal Air Force and the Army to the final and greatest pageant of his Silver Jubilee year, the naval review last week at Spithead, off Portsmouth. "Fly Past/-- Three brand new Baby Rolls-Royces were at His Majesty's disposal when he went down to Mildenhall, Suffolk, to view some $5,000,000 worth of fighting aircraft which had nearly burned up in a huge grass fire night before. Stepping into an apple-green Baby Rolls, and wearing for the first time in his life the blue uniform of Marshal of the Royal Air Force. George V rolled safely along the ground past 38 squadrons totaling 350 planes.

Though machine guns rigged to fire through airplane propellers without hitting the spinning blades were among the first air developments of the War, the King asked with his affection-winning candor: "How is that possible?" His question having been answered at length, the 70-year-old Sovereign chuckled contentedly: "Soon I shall know all about these things."

Next the motorcade sped 32 miles to Duxford where Queen Mary was waiting to have luncheon. In high good humor King George cracked jokes and roared with mirth during the meal. Thus two hours were whiled away, every minute being needed to get 182 fighting ships into the air ready for the "Fly Past" over Duxford. This was made at the unusually high altitude for an air force review of 1,000 feet "because the king is greatly affected by noise." So were 150,000 spectators. Even at 1,000 feet the menacing clatter of the air armada filled Britons less with pride than fear. The great throng at the climax of the "Fly Past" seemed stricken dumb. Sober faces were eloquent of what everyone was thinking: "These are our planes, but they might be Germany's."

"Guns Right!" The Army display, with George V turned out at Aldershot as a Field Marshal in khaki uniform and field boots, was more cheerful. Since His Majesty's horse is also affected by noise, the audience of 50,000 was requested not to cheer until he had safely dismounted. Then pandemonium burst from loyal throats in cheer on cheer while the Royal Field Marshal was got in the shade of a pavilion and 9,000 warriors--a full-strength British war division--began marching, trotting, speeding and clanking past. Over one-half of this modern Army display was not afoot or ahorse. So-called "motor cavalry" dashed past in light cars. Heavy tanks saluted the King Emperor by turning their gun turrets with massive precision to the angle U. S. soldiers call "eyes right." After God Save the King had been played so softly that it sounded like a prayer, the cry rose "Three cheers for His Majesty!" As they were given the royal right hand remained motionless in a long, long appreciative salute, George V's way of thanking his subjects.

Second Recessional? Cousins are Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and Poet Rudyard Kipling, at whose home the statesman first met his invaluable, bouncing Wife Lucy. Last week sturdy Squire Baldwin, whose hobby is breeding prize pigs, was the only prominent member of His Majesty's Government who did not take time out to attend the Spithead sea pageant. Cousin Kipling, on the other hand, had been so fired by the prospect of this Silver Jubilee Naval Review that he had been grinding away for weeks in an effort to repeat the success of his Recessional, written for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Last week 69-year-old Mr. Kipling released his poem free of copyright to anyone who would print it in full.* Silent was England's Poet Laureate, shy John Masefield. In Manhattan bold Spoon River Anthologist Edgar Lee Masters commented with a shrug: "The King and the Sea is nothing but verse--almost prose in fact. It can't be compared with Recessional. That is a cannibal hymn and I've always despised the damned thing, but it has a kind of swing to it--a lyrical dignity. This hasn't even that."

"Enemy In Sight!" In July 1914, just eight days before the World War broke, George V reviewed 228 war boats off Spithead in the greatest steam-past of his reign. Last week he scanned 160 war boats, including the Australian flagship, H. M. A. S. Australia which recently brought H. R. H. the Duke of Gloucester home from his tour Down Under (TIME, April 8). Last week Gloucester was marooned on the Australia while the King's other three sons were with His Majesty on the brass-funneled Victorian royal yacht Victoria and Albert. From her forepeak flew the Leopard of the Lord High Admiral of England, the King. Sixty-four special trains chuffed in with a trampling, eager throng which other means of transport swelled to 250,000. In all 54 females fainted. With the sun blistering down, George V received on his yacht slews of gold-laced admirals, sea-peacocks who arrived in glittering barges, plus the more drab captains of liners sent to the review as "floating grandstands," the Berengaria, Alcantara and Arandora Star. On some of these, British spenders paid as much as $250 per head for the day's outing in a deluxe suite. Snapping their Kodaks, they caught the Victoria and Albert steaming up and down eight lanes of sheer, breathtaking Sea Power. Twenty-one-gun salutes rang agreeably in George V's ears--for the thunder of a three-pounder is not noise but music to His seagoing Majesty. That night the British Fleet was "lit up like a Portuguese Carnival"--as an admiring Portuguese diplomat remarked-- but next day the King's delighted subjects were left behind, the floating grandstands were signaled not to follow, and His Majesty led the fleet to sea in war formation, flying from his yacht a signal meaning "THE ENEMY IS IN SIGHT." No enemy was ever sighted, but the big guns pounded away at H. M. S. Centurion, a target ship controlled by radio. Of 320 "dead" shells fired at the Centurion, 56 hit the mark. Last of the maneuvers was the one stunt feature of this month's air, land and sea reviews. The King, who despises stunts, barely consented to watch a new-fangled gadget called a Queen Bee zip off the deck of an aircraft carrier and fly without a pilot by radio control to attack H. M. S. Rodney. To the oldfangled Monarch's immense satisfaction the first Queen Bee tumbled into the water almost before it got started and the second was shot down by Rodney's quick-firing 4.7 in. guns.

Happy as the great review closed, George V, as Lord High Admiral of England, ordered "Splice the main brace!" This used to mean that every man aboard got a ration of rum nicely calculated to make him feel elated without getting him too drunk to be of further use-- 1/8pint. Today those who do not wish to become elated can ask for a limeade, never mentioned by the King without picturesque additions.

Never more popular than today, George V went home to a London in which the House of Commons was ringing with ironic cries of "Remember the Maine!" Aboard the hospital ship Maine, which was used last week by Government bigwigs & friends as a floating grandstand, the food was so abominable and the service so slow that First Lord of the Admiralty Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell next day addressed a letter of apology to each distinguished guest. In swank Mayfair a rich young Argentine made herself obnoxious to English friends by screaming at cocktail parties, "My dears, in the crush I had a perfect piece of meat on my plate when a clutching hand came over my shoulder and seized it! Wolves--those people on the Maine were simply wolves!"

*THE KING AND THE SEA (In which the Sea describes the King's early training in the Royal Navy before the death of his elder brother, the Duke of Clarence, put him in line for the Throne.)

I After his realms and states were moved To bare their hearts to the King they loved, Tendering themselves in homage and devotion, The tide wave up the Channel spoke To all those eager, exultant folk: ''Hear now what man was given you by the ocean!

II

"There was no thought of orb or crown When the single, wooden chest went down To the steering-flat, and the careless gunroom hailed him To learn by ancient and bitter use, How neither favour nor excuse, Nor aught save his sheer self henceforth availed

him.

III

"There was no talk of birth or rank By the slung hammock or scrubbed plank In the steel-grated prisons where I cast him; For But rest -- niggard and hours the and a naked light narrow on his space face -- While the ship's traffic flowed, unceasing, past him. IV "Thus I speak at the schooled him word to -- at go a and sign be come -- dumb; To stand to his task, not seeking others to aid him; To share in honour what praise might fall For the task accomplished and -- over all -- To swallow rebuke in silence. Thus I made him.

V "I loosened every mood of the deep On him, a child and sick for sleep, Through the long watches that no time can measure, When I drove him, deafened and choked and blind, At the wavetops cut and spun by the wind; Lashing him, face and eyes, with my displeasure. " VI I opened him all the guile of the seas -- Their sullen, swift-sprung treacheries. To be fought, or forestalled, or dared, or dismissed with laughter. I showed him worth by folly concealed, And the flaw in the soul that a chance revealed-- (Lessons remembered--to bear fruit thereafter.) VII "I dealt him power beneath his hand, For trial and proof, with his first command-- Himself alone, and no man to gainsay him. On him the end, the means, and the word. And the harsher judgment if he erred, And--outboard--ocean waiting to betray him. VIII "Wherefore, when he came to be crowned, Strength in duty held him bound, So that not power misled nor ease ensnared him Who had spared himself no more than his seas had spared him!" IX After his lieges, in all his lands, Had laid their hands between his hands And his ships thundered service and devotion, The tide wave, ranging the planet, spoke On all our foreshores as it broke: "Know now what man I gave you--I, the ocean!"

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